Dear LPG, 

I wonder if you fit into this demographic?   

The internet says that the number of friends (as opposed to acquaintances) that the average Brit has varies with many changing circumstances of life, but age is one of the major ones, and the trends have to be changing because of the way that we make so many of them these days.  

When I look at the members of my family a generation or two down from me, they seem to see friendship completely differently from the way I do, and in a world where loneliness is becoming an increasingly pressing problem at any age, that has to be concerning.  

Judging from the way they talk, I can only gather that my grandchildren often seem more concerned with how many friends they have on their social media platforms. I often hear my grandchildren, who are just about old enough to be past the stage of childhood when their parents have control over what they do online, telling each other about the size of their followings rather than the quality.   

It seems to me that young people are truly missing out because they spend so much time texting their friends rather than actually getting to know them. I have a young grandson who keeps telling me about his aspiration to become an influencer and have lots of ‘followers’. As a result, he spends a lot of time on the internet making what he calls ‘content’; time that quite a few of his family feel could be better spent on face-to-face contact with people. I am not saying that he never goes anywhere, but he is spending so much of his spare time offering other people information that there is little time for interaction with some of them.  

What bothers me most is how the friendships our young people have to lean on as they get older will be affected by the friendships they appear to be missing out on while they are still young.   

Moving away from platonic friendship left me noting that more and more young people are meeting their partners online. I suppose this is the modern version of an arranged marriage, even though the participants are choosing for themselves. Physical attraction is satisfied with a picture or short video, while there is no real small talk. They learn the basics about each other by looking at a ‘matrimonial CV’, which takes all the fun (and heartache) out of finding Mr or Mrs Right these days.  

I know it is a quicker way to connect, and speed seems to be the most important factor governing how we live our lives in these modern times, but I can’t help wondering whether something meaningful is lost when connection is reduced to profiles and pictures. 

Perhaps this is where we pensioners, who still have the opportunity to offer a little influential advice to the few adolescent youngsters who will listen, can make a difference. When I see those young thumbs darting all over those little mobile phone screen keypads, I have to ask whether our young people are making the time to develop sufficient real friendships to carry them through later life, whether those friendships are platonic or otherwise.  

Talking on the phone has to be better than texting, but more face-to-face chats might change the potentially lonely shape of things to come…  

SO, Lewisham